"Te
Putatara" is a webzine by Te Aute Publications,
P.O.Box 408, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Edited by
Ross Nepia Himona. "Te Putatara" is published
on the World Wide Web at: http://maorinews.com/putatara . At that URL all the back issues
of "Te Putatara" have been indexed and are
searchable. Copyright: Ross Nepia Himona. Feel free to
print, copy and re-transmit but please acknowledge
source.

Been busy this last month, as
most of you will know, covering the Fiji crisis through my
daily news service Te Karere Ipurangi. Consequently this
issue of Te Putatara will, I think, be a bit shorter than the
last few rather lengthy ones.

The main theme will be an
analysis of the potential of the Internet and World Wide Web
to further the cause of Maori political aims, by magnifying
the reach of political activists, individually and
collectively. These are the lessons I've learned over the
last few weeks, taking up the cause of Indigenous Fijians,
and getting stuck into our own government for its totally
inept handling of the foreign affairs of the nation. While
interviewing me on his radio interview show my whanaunga Syd
Jackson admitted that he was not really Internet literate,
and I think that might be so for most activists, even those
who do have an email connection. I think that it's time to
become proficient in using this information and
communications technology for electronic activism.

For about 18 hours after the
coup in the Solomon Islands, when the telephones were down,
and before the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation
(SIBC) got their own website functioning, Te Karere Ipurangi
was the only international media outlet receiving news from
the Solomons. This was achieved by a tinpot one-man band
operation, ahead of all the international media and their
vast resources, simply by establishing an indigenous to
indigenous email link with the newsroom at SIBC.

Another theme I've been
pushing over the last few months is the need for Maori to
look outwards to the other countries of the region, and to
become much more aware of what's happening in the region. In
an article at Te Karere Ipurangi I've declared that Foreign
Affairs is a Maori Affairs issue. I really believe that, and
I'll write a bit more about that.

Professor Jane Kelsey has also
kindly allowed me to reprint one of her articles on
"What a closer economic relationship means for
Maori". The whole issue of the re-colonisation of the
world by the white nations, using international organisations
such as the IMF, WTO and many others, is a matter of extreme
importance to us, for it threatens the very survival of all
indigenous peoples and their cultures, including Maori.

te whare miere,
house of honeyed deceitparliament, parliament, what
a sadsack ol' outfit you are

The Real Minister of Maori
Affair

This month "Big Hat No
Cattle" Dover Samuels admitted that Helen Clark is the
real Minister of Maori Affair. Now this is something all the
politically aware readers of Te Putatara have known since the
day the Ministerial posts were announced, ne ra. Engari, the
old kaumatua of the Government has finally admitted that he's
just the tekoteko. And he's proudly announced that he
supports this arrangement. Go Dover.

Maori MPs still Muzzled

During the Fiji crisis I sent
every email to all the Maori MPs, who for the most part did
not utter a peep in the media. Dover Samuels and Sandra Lee,
the two ministers inside Cabinet, spoke out with what was
obviously the Cabinet line. All cabinet ministers are bound
by the rule of collective cabinet responsibility, and they
are forbidden from making any personal observsations that
might be at odds with the mob in the cabinet.

The Labour and Alliance
Parties also have very oppressive rules about speaking out
publicly against party policy, so you haven't heard any of
those Maori MPs speaking out on Fiji either, except for a
fairly innocuous remark by John Tamihere. And except for a
few private little communications I've received from some of
them to tautoko my own campaign. Otherwise they've been
muzzled.

It is inconceivable that those
Maori MPs could support the culturally offensive outbursts of
Helen Clark and Phil Goff in the early days of the crisis,
and their assumption that it was their role to dictate what
should happen in Fiji. But the rules kept them quiet.
Hopefully, some of them might have taken a role in moderating
the rhetoric of Clark and Goff.

They're muzzled on a whole
range of other issues as well, except for the occasional
public pushing at the barriers by Tariana Turia and Willie
Jackson.

Wiilie seems to have won his
public standoff with Trevor Mallard over the electronic
spectrum auction, but not everyone is happy with the result,
especially not the people who raised the issue in the first
place.

Maori Affairs & Foreign
Affairs

I've written elsewhere about
this, and I'll provide a link at the end of this issue.
There's no doubt in my mind that our Maori MPs need to take a
much closer and active interest in the Foreign Affairs
portfolio.

During my 20 year career in
the military I had a lot of contact with people from South
East Asia, Melanesians and Polynesians, in both military and
military/diplomatic roles. I learnt to speak Bahasa Indonesia
and Malay. Whilst those people were invariably polite and
courteous to my Pakeha colleagues, privately they always
confided that they would much rather deal with Maori. They
often said that they couldn't understand why there were not
many more Maori in the foreign service, and thought New
Zealand's interests in the region would be much better served
by Maori diplomats.

Two Maori high commissioners
who were extremely well thought of in their host countries
were the late Lieutenant Colonel Sir Charles Bennett in
Malaysia in the 1960s, and the late Major General Brian
Poananga in Papua New Guinea in the 1970s. In fact, in the
case of Brian Poananga, the Prime Minister of PNG had
specifically asked for a Maori high commissioner. Sir Charles
was awarded one of Malaysia's highest awards, a rare
distinction which the New Zealand Government forbade him from
accepting. He accepted it anyway.

The foreign service remains
though, a bastion of white supremacy, with very few Maori in
its higher echelons. Tia Barrett, the present High
Commissioner in Suva, is the exception.

The reaction of this
government to the crisis in Fiji was an example of gross
cultural offensiveness, and urgently needs to be moderated by
Maori understandings of the peoples of this region. Foreign
Affairs is far too important to be left to culturally
ignorant Pakeha politicians any longer.

Hypocrisy & Foreign
Affairs

Ranting about Fiji, they go on
about the evils of having "racial" rights built
into a constitution. They conveniently overlook the Malaysian
constitution which does exactly that. Hypocrisy.

They go on about the
righteousness of "democracy", granting official
recognition to China which is not democratic, and failing to
recognise Taiwan, which is democratic. Hypocrisy.

An Embassy in Brazil

Foreign Affairs minister, Phil
Goff, has announced that late next year New Zealand will open
a new embassy in Brazil, "as a key component of the
Government's Latin America strategy to develop closer trading
and political links."

Conveniently overlooking
Brazil's contemporary record in failing to protect the human
and indigenous rights of its numerous indigenous peoples.
Cattle ranchers continue to clear and burn huge tracts of
primary forest owned by indigenous peoples, to steal their
lands and waters. They are killing the indigenous people by
removing their livelihoods and their lives. The killing is
not just indirect through enforced relocation, poverty and
rapidly increasing suicide. It is direct. There are many
recorded instances of shootups, where they go hunting
indigenous people as though they were animals. Reminders of
an evil and darker age in Australia, and almost everywhere
else the colonisers ever went, including the Spanish in South
America.

Meanwhile, although this is
all illegal, The Brazilian government and provincial
governments just turn a blind eye. After all, the indigenous
people are holding back progress, economic development and
trade.

Goff made an enormous fuss
about human rights in Fiji. So what about Brazil Phil?
Hypocrisy.

Parekura & Trevor

Heard a whisper on the kumara
vine that Parekura Horomia (Associate Minister of Education)
and Trevor Mallard (Minister of Education) have been having a
few little misunderstandings about the direction of Maori
education, and who knows best. Be interesting to keep tabs
on.

Seems they might be at odds
over the Matauranga Maori Hui Taumata this coming October.
Like who owns the hui, and what it will be doing.

Community Employment Group
(CEG)

Well, e hoa ma, as predicted
months ago, Parekura has had his way and the CEG operation is
on its way back to the Labour Department from poor old WINZ.
You'll remember that after that poor Mrs Christine Rankin of
WINZ took over CEG, she sort of sidelined and marginalised
its boss, Parekura Horomia. Then he resigned from the public
service and came back as a minister. Well bowled Mr Horomia!
How's that ump? You're *#&%^$# out Mrs Rankin !!

You didn't know you were a
spin bowler, did you Brother?

Te Puni Kokiri's Budget

See in the budget that TPK got
an extra $12 million over four years (i.e. $3m per year), to
improve monitoring of the performance of other agencies. It's
not really an increase though, because that's what the
funding was for Tau Henare's Maori commissions that have been
disbanded. From Tau to Peter to Paul to Ngatata to Dover to
Helen. Hey presto, that's where that $12 mill came from.

Heard on the kumara vine that
TPK actually asked for quite a few millions (more than $20m I
heard) to set up this mobile network of mobile people with
automobiles and mobile phones. Maybe laptop computers too.
Something like the old hui-hopping Community workers of the
late and not much lamented Department of Maori Affair, only a
techno-hui-hopping version. Ka aroha.

Closing the Gaps & the
Budget

There's $114m over four years
for capacity building in Maori and Pacific Island
communities, and specifically for Maori there's $20.8m for
Maori job creation, $27.5m for TPK to implement community
ideas, $20m for smoking cessation, $40m for Maori health
provider development, $55m for Maori education, $10m to
reduce Maori offending, and $50m for anything they haven't
thought of already.

When you look closely at it,
and divide it by 4, it's actually less than they spent per
annum on special business development and training programmes
for Maori in the late 1980s. And that didn't close many gaps
either, in the long run.

Will it close the gaps? Or
start to close them?

Doubt it. In earlier issues
I've stated why I think they're looking at the wrong gaps.
Also, if you treat the symptoms of a disease instead of the
causes, you don't really get better, you just feel better for
a while.

Take education. Firstly, the
Ministry of Education knows that one of the biggest causes of
under-performance by schools for their pupils, is
under-performing principals. Outstanding principals have
outstanding schools. Lousy principals have lousy schools.
Very few of them are trained as principals. And the Ministry
knows that if they spent a maximum of $10m training say 5000
principals and potential principals to do their jobs
properly, then schools' performance for both Maori and
non-Maori pupils would dramatically improve. They know that
already.

Again in Education, many Maori
educators know that the philosophy behind curriculum,
educational practice and teaching, benchmarking, measurement
and assessment, is inherently anti-Maori. The Ministry has
been told this for decades. There is no money in this budget
to address that fundamental cause of educational
under-achievement.

Want a cheap way to eradicate
those gaps? Get serious about the causes. And then move on to
the real gaps, which are the gaps between institutional
performance, and achievable performance for all Tangata
Aotearoa, Maori and non-Maori. They just don't want to
acknowledge that the institutions are also grossly
under-performing for Pakeha, even though Pakeha do better
than Maori.

Well, spend just $250m over 10
years educating Pakeha people in institutions (schools,
hospitals, politicians, parliament, government agencies, etc)
about their own racism, and the inbuilt racism of their
institutions. Spend another $250m over 10 years researching
and looking closely at the attitudes, philosophies, theories
and practices in all those institutions, that have an inbuilt
anti-Maori bias, and that are culturally inappropriate for
Maori. Then modify or replace them so that they are user
friendly for both Maori and non-Maori.

It would be a whole lot
cheaper, and infinitely more effective than these
"closing the gaps" panaceas and palliatives.

New Legislation for Te Puni
Kokiri

Heard on the kumara vine that
there's a new Bill coming into the House soon, giving TPK
extra powers to spy on everyone. Keep your eyes and ears
open.

Throughout the crisis in Fiji,
as most of you will know, I have been using the tools of the
Internet and World Wide Web to develop my own knowledge about
how these information and communications tools can be used to
promote causes, run campaigns, and generally indulge in what
is known as electronic activism.

The use of the technology by
activists is being developed by many groups around the world.
Most notably it was used to support the Zapatistas of Mexico,
and is now being used to loosely coordinate the worldwide
anti-globalisation movement.

I think it will become a very
important aspect in the conduct of politics in the future.
For instance in the last Victoria State elections in
Australia, a single website and email campaign is thought to
be responsible for tipping the balance against Jeff Kennett,
the former Premier. At the moment all political parties in
Aotearoa New Zealand have their websites and newsletters, but
perhaps only Simon Upton at UptonOnline is making really
effective use of the medium, coupled with Scoop News which
re-publishes his articles, to promote a personal view of
events, and himself of course.

E-activism will be used
increasingly by lobby groups to influence the course of
events.

I was interviewed on radio by
my whanaunga Syd Jackson a couple of weeks ago about my
Support Fiji campaign, and he let it slip that he was not
really literate in the technology. I made a smart remark
about moving on from Nga Tamatoa, but that got me thinking
about how it might be used to more effectively promote Maori
causes and concerns, and decided me to chronicle as a case
study what I had been developing.

But first, some pointers about
how to use it. There is a collection of Activism links at the
end of this issue as well.

Strategy

Any activism campaign needs to
have clearly delineated vision, goals and strategies.

An electronic campaign will
most likely be conducted in concert with a traditional
campaign involving such classic techniques as protest,
demonstration, sit-in, occupation, educational activity,
letter writing, and media campaigns. However as the
techniques for electronic campaigning develop, there will
probably be more and more campaigns that are mainly
electronic.

Regardless, strategy for
electronic campaigns needs to cover the use of websites,
email, media and newsgroups. These will be discussed below.
There are other techniques being developed around electronic
civil disobedience, and internet hacktivism. These will not
be discussed in this article, but links to other sites are
provided at the end of this issue.

The strategy of my Support
Fiji campaign was quite simple, built around a statement of
intent:

"Since the very
beginning of this crisis in Fiji, I and many others have
been appalled, from an indigenous Pacific cultural
perspective, by the intemperate outbursts of politicians
and media in Australia and New Zealand. I have been
concerned as well, that the voices of indigenous Fijians
are not being heard around the world. I have attempted,
with others, to present an alternative indigenous
perspective at this website.

"In presenting this
perspective we have received many messages of support and
thanks from around the world. We have also received much
support and thanks from Indigenous Fijian people who have
not had access to media resources to allow their own
voices to be heard, in the face of the torrent of abuse,
mockery and ridicule they have been subjected to.

"This site does not
claim to represent Indigenous Fijians, but serves to
provide an Indigenous Maori perspective on the crisis in
Fiji, to publish sympathetic commentary from friends of
Fiji, and to allow indigenous Fijians to speak out for
themselves."

The strategy included an
extensive email campaign aimed at decision makers in Aotearoa
and around the world, but focused mainly on the Pacific and
the Commonwealth.

World Wide Web

There are many Maori now
actively building websites, including only a few devoted to
activism and general political issues. The main site in this
regard is Tino Rangatiratanga.

As with any website, the keys
to success and great websites are:

Great strategy

A clear purpose for
the website, closely aligned to the strategy of your
organisation or campaign, with a clearly identified
audience or audiences.

Great technology

In my opinion great
technology is simple and appropriate technology. Use
bells and whistles only when necessary to achieve the
strategy, strive for simplicity, and remember that
download time is all-important. Too many graphics
makes download time too long, and visitors don't hang
around.

Great design

Great design is simple
design; uncluttered, easy to navigate, and easy to
read. Use plenty of blank spaces around text to give
the eyes some relief. Avoid black or other dark
backgrounds, and remember that black on white is
still the easiest to read.

Great content

CONTENT IS KING. Great
content, interesting, entertaining, informative,
regularly updated, is far and away the most important
ingredient for success on the Web.

Great tools

Activist websites are
also enhanced by providing easy to use tools to
enable people to become personally involved in the
cause or campaign. This might be information for
their own websites and newsletters, software to make
organisation easier, ready to send email messages,
media releases and letters to politicians and others,
and how-to guides. An essential tool is educational
content.

The Fiji Coup Supplement to Te
Karere Ipurangi, started from scratch as a simple editorial
page, the Sunday after the Speight coup, and over the next
days and weeks developed into a campaign website. Most effort
went into the content of the website, content being king, but
presentation is important, and given the time available I
tried to make it pleasing on the eye, and kept it as simple
as I could. It needed to be simple to manage as well. It
might be possible to develop a template for a campaign
website that can be applied to any campaign, with
modification.

The success of a website is
measured by the number of new visitors to the site, the
number of repeat and regular visitors to the site, the
feedback you get from your visitors, and the degree of
interaction you have with your visitors. Interactivity is
gained by using guestbooks, discussion boards, forums,
feedback pages, electronic newsletters, subscription lists,
and the use of email tools.

Building the website is the
least costly and time-consuming part of the exercise. The
time and money goes into maintaining websites, keeping them
current, adding new information and features, and building
and maintaining active contact with the website's
constituency.

A website must be actively
marketed to attract new visitors, and to keep old visitors
coming back. Right across the Web there are millions of
websites that are no more than static unchanging electronic
pamphlets and brochures - read once and never return. No
amount of marketing will make them successful, for they don't
cross the threshhold of greatness in websites.

The Support Fiji site was
linked to my Te Karere Ipurangi Maori news website and
internet portal, which already has a reasonable new visitor
count, and a base of regular clients. This provided part of
the base upon which the Fiji site was marketed.

Most web-builders are aware of
the need to have their websites registered and continually
re-registered with the search engines, but few realise that
designing and coding a website that is optimised for search
engines is an art in itself. Activist sites need to ensure
that search engine friendliness is built in from the start.
These are simple skills, quickly learned, that most people
never know about.

Building relationships with
other organisations and their websites is an important part
of the campaign, in order to get as many links as possible to
the campaign website. Throughout the Fiji crisis, by far the
largest number of visitors to my Fiji Coup site came from the
Yahoo News site dedicated to coverage of Fiji. Measured by
visitor count, Yahoo is one of the most visited sites on the
whole Web, and a top ten Yahoo listing is hard to get, and
highly prized. I was able at an early stage to show Yahoo
that my site was the only site presenting an alternative
perspective, and they featured it prominently in their links
section. Unlike nearly all Australian and New Zealand
websites and media outlets, Yahoo was interested in balance,
and alternative viewpoints.

Nearly all my articles were
also published by the independent NZ news company, Scoop
News, on their web and email news service. This gave the
campaign a wider reach into the non-Maori community in
Aotearoa New Zealand, and also brought in more website
visitors from the links that Scoop provided to my site. Scoop
also serves New Zealanders living overseas.

Most webmasters do not realise
however that the effectiveness of websites, whether they are
business sites or activist sites, depends mostly on the use
of email to support and promote the site.

For instance, all of the
commentary, releases and articles I published at my Fiji Coup
Supplement website were also mailed out to an extensive list.
This served to take the message to a much wider readership,
and brought in many more visitors than simple search engine
marketing would.

Email

In e-activism, as in
e-commerce, email is the most potent campaign or marketing
tool, and must be used to extend the reach and effect of the
website. I often think that in fact it is the other way
around, and that the website only complements the email
campaign.

This can be as simple as
putting a link to the website in the signature of every
email, allowing email recipients to simply click to get taken
to the site. The more emails you send, the more visitors.

Beyond that however, most busy
people are more inclined to read an interesting email than to
bother to interrupt the flow of their work to go to a website
(although you still have a lot of people who do go to the
website).

The most important email list
of them all is the opt-in subscription list, where people
have already opted to receive and read your email. This list
is built from the visitors to the campaign website, and can
take years of hard work to build. The Te Putatara email list
that I operate was therefore the initial basis of the Support
Fiji campaign. However the Tino Rangatiratanga email list is
an important Maori activism list, where subscribers have
opted to receive activism email. These two lists provided a
known initial and almost guaranteed readership of about 600
people, mostly Maori.

In the Support Fiji email
campaign the full text of all articles was sent to:

Foreign embassies and
high commissions in Wellington
Foreign embassies and high commissions in Suva
Heads of state and prime ministers of Pacific, SE
Asian & Commonwealth countries.

International
& Regional Organisations

Commonwealth
Secretariat
South Pacific Forum
South Pacific Commission

National &
International Media

The only outlet in New
Zealand that carried releases was Scoop News, but
overseas outlets including Yahoo, Pacific Islands
Report, the Guardian and a few others did carry
articles and provide important links.

Forwarding into
Other Lists (8,000)

You will have no idea
where else the email is being forwarded but feedback
will give you some idea. In the Fiji campaign I found
out from feedback that my emails were being forwarded
to at least another 8,000 recipients worldwide.
Individuals maintain personal lists from just a few
friends and family to thousands of contacts, and
people also forward interesting emails into other
formal subscription email lists they belong to.

There are many more I could
have added to the list, but as I was building these lists in
the middle of the campaign it took time and research to find
the email addresses. The idea is to build the lists before
you need them.

Feedback from these email
activities is important, as it helps to shape the ongoing
campaign, and enables articles to be more specifically
targeted. For instance, early in the Fiji campaign I learned
of a small number of Heads of State and Prime Ministers of
Commonwealth countries, and a few ambassadors and high
commissioners, who were taking a personal interest in the
campaign. I therefore knew before I wrote it, that an open
letter to the Heads of State of Commonwealth countries would
be read by at least a few of them.

Negative feedback is also part
of the territory. In my campaign this came almost entirely
from passing readers of the website, and very few from email
recipients. This was an indication that the email campaign
was reasonably well targeted. Some of the negatives were very
abusive, and occasionally threatening. It does however allow
you to judge what the committed opposition is thinking, and
again to shape the campaign specifically to refute or
ridicule their standpoint. For the few over-zealous
reactionaries who tried to bombard me with invective, the
"block sender, delete immediately" facility in my
email software took care of them, and probably made them even
more angry as I wasn't receiving them or reading them and
they weren't getting any reaction.

In any email campaign however,
business or activist, one should only count on a maximum of
5% to 10% rate of effective contact and communication from
general lists, with much higher levels of effectiveness from
the opt-in more finely targeted lists.

Tiger Country - the
newsgroups

Newsgroups were set up before
the advent of the World Wide Web, and were used in the first
place by scientists and academics to share research, and
conduct collaborative research. Once the students got hold of
them however the number of newsgroups rapidly increased.
Today they cover almost every imaginable topic and must now
number over 50,000 groups. There are literally millions of
people (well, hundreds of thousands) who contribute to or
just read the newsgroups.

Late in the campaign I took my
courage in both hands and decided to publish in some of the
newsgroups, knowing full well that they are full of racists
and bigots who descend in a pack on any mention of
"Maori" or "indigenous". There are many
normal people there as well. Anyone going into these groups
with Maori or indigenous comments and opinions needs to be
aware that an unrelenting personally abusive pack attack will
result. But it can be fun, providing you keep your keyboard
cool, when all around you are losing theirs in a feeding
frenzy of racism.

You should gamely resist the
temptation to deliberately bait the rednecks, but I usually
give in to temptation myself.

The upside is that there are
many resonable people there as well, and you will reach them
with your message. There are some who will actively
sympathise and support. There are also many overseas people
reading the nz newsgroups. Very few Maori though.

The advantage of the
newsgroups is that they are widely read, even by your
opponents. They are also monitored by journalists and
writers, and by researchers; for instance by party
researchers in Parliament.

The newsgroups used in the
Fiji campaign were:

New Zealand &
Pacific

soc.culture.new-zealand

soc.culture.pacific-island
(mostly pakeha/palangi)

nz.politics

nz.general

Indigenous (mainly
North American)

alt.native

soc.culture.native

Indonesia (this
was a limited effort as I didn't have much time to
translate articles into Bahasa Indonesia, but did manage
a few. A truly international campaign however will need
to consider multiple languages)

alt.culture.indonesia

soc.culture.indonesia

Visits to the campaign website
increased noticeably immediately after the newsgroup strategy
was launched. In fact visitor numbers doubled in the first
three days. A few of them were just looking for ammunition to
attack me with, but at least they had to read it first.

Bulletin Boards

Whilst there are many bulletin
boards around the Web, they tend to be time consuming.
However as part of the follow-up to my own campaign I will be
searching out boards that may be useful in the future. In
this campaign I used two that I use regularly myself, and
which do have informed audiences:

Maori political issues,
and

Asian Intelligence
Resources

Measuring Campaign
Effectiveness

In the Fiji campaign, email
feedback provided the only measure of its effectiveness, but
full scale campaigns would benefit from professional sampling
and surveys.

For instance, it would be
interesting to know how attitudes in government and
Commonwealth countries might have been moderated by the
detailed research published in the website, and nowhere else,
and how well the educational component of the campaign
worked, for instance, for the Maori audience.

Nevertheless I received a
large number of supportive emails from Maori, Pakeha,
Indigenous Fijians, both in Fiji and other countries, and
friends of Fiji around the world. Many people also sent me
articles and ideas for articles.

In any future campaigns I
would develop a much more comprehensive media plan, and
devote more effort to straight media releases targeted at
mainstream media, as well as the website and email commentary
and research I used this time. In the Fiji campaign I did not
really use the media effectively, except for the help from
Scoop and Yahoo. Time was a factor.

I would also take time in
future to organise an email and letter-writing campaign from
as many other people as possible, in order to add the weight
of numbers. For instance, an avalanche of emails from around
the country to politicians and other decision makers, in
support of the main campaign, would significantly increase
impact.

Conclusion

These lessons and techniques
have been learned and developed from what amounted to a
tinpot little one-man-band campaign mounted on impulse, aided
and abetted by contributions from a few people in Aotearoa
and overseas. Properly organised campaigns, involving a team
of people well versed in these techniques, particularly
web-writers and electronic networkers, would undoubtedly be a
better option.

From feedback received I think
it was moderately successful in educating and shaping
opinion, and quite successful in demonstrating support for
Indigneous Fijians. The feedback from Fiji has been most
gratifying.

However, I think the main
long-term benefit of this exercise has been in learning,
developing and refining the techniques of electronic
activism. And in sharing them with you.

How will electronic activism
benefit Maori?

This technology and the
techniques of e-activism are in their infancy. Already I
think you can see just how potent it could be in promoting
causes and issues, not just in Aotearoa, but by projecting
them into the rest of the world, making them ultra-public. As
more and more people get connected, and new software tools
are developed, this medium has the potential to magnify and
multiply our impact upon the world beyond present
comprehension. I truly believe that.

Until recently it was called a
free trade agreement, but the government has changed the name
because 'FTAs' are out of favour these days. Essentially it's
an agreement to remove restrictions on trade in goods and
services, and on investment, between NZ and Singapore.

What stage is it at?

The Singapore and (National)
NZ governments agreed last September to begin negotiating a
free trade agreement, after it became clear that APEC wasn't
going anywhere in a hurry. Since then they have agreed to
quite a lot of the text but there are also quite a lot of
issues yet agreed. The current deadline is to finish
negotiations around the end of June.

Who is pushing this?

The supporters of
globalisation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
(MFAT) and some other officials, ministers and MPs in the old
and new government who support free trade and investment, and
some of the business sector. The Prime Minister has spoken
out publicly in support. However, the Alliance and Greens are
opposed. Some Labour MPs and Ministers are too.

Why?

Because the global free market
agenda is pretty much at a standstill.

Individual countries have gone
cold on reducing their trade and investment barriers without
other countries matching them. APEC's goal of free trade and
investment regime by 2010 in rich countries and 2020 in poor
ones has struck a rock.

The meeting in Seattle late
last year failed to agree to a new round of free trade
negotiations in the World Trade Organisation.

How is this agreement
meant to help?

The plan is to kick start the
process again by negotiating a lot of smaller agreements
which can lock together to achieve the bigger goal.

Why Singapore?

Singapore is almost as gung-ho
on global free markets as NZ has been. Both governments
reckon if they can agree on a model agreement, and extend it
gradually to other countries, they can get the free trade
process underway again. As NZ's former chief trade
negotiator, and now the head of Asia 2000, admitted:

"Stated bluntly, the
Singapore/NZ FTA is a Trojan Horse for the real
negotiating end-game: a possible new trade bloc
encompassing all of South East Asia and Australia and
NZ".

What are they aiming
for?

The goal is for NZ to remove
all restrictions on trade and investment by 2010 (the APEC
goal), although it's not clear if Singapore is working to a
2010 or 2020 date to remove its restrictions.

Will this agreement go
that far?

It's impossible to say because
the negotiations are secret. The government has refused to
release the document that went to Cabinet setting out the
instructions to negotiators. All that's been released is a
general information paper which says it will cover goods,
services and investment, with a summary of the cost/benefit
analysis the officials have done. That doesn't give nearly
enough detail to work out its likely consequences. But it's
clear that NZ will be expected to remove the few restrictions
which remain in return for Singapore cutting some of theirs.

Why should this be of
concern to Maori?

Maori have interests in each
of the major areas it covers, eg.Trade: The only tariffs NZ
puts on goods imported from Singapore involve textiles and
clothing. This is an area where around 30% of workers are
Maori. Many are women and sometimes the only wage earners in
the family. The factories are often in small towns where this
is the major employer. After a big fight the National
government agreed to slow down the removal of tariffs on
clothing etc. The Labour/Alliance government has now agreed
to stop the cuts until 2005. This agreement would remove
those tariffs for Singapore. While that is quite a small part
of clothing and textile imports, it could make a difference
to whether the factories survive. Singapore also has
investments in free trade zones with cheap labour and may try
to bring in more clothes made in those places.

Services:

Services include health,
education, broadcasting, tourism. Free trade in services
means NZ cannot discriminate in favour of its own service
suppliers. Singaporeans have to be given as good (if not
better) treatment. That could include access to NZ subsidies
and might prevent NZ introducing local content quotas for
Maori broadcasting or requiring professionals to have
training in the Treaty and cultural safety before getting
registered in NZInvestment:

For years, foreign investors
have been stripping NZ assets, like forestry, and businesses,
like Telecom or Tranzrail, for a quick profit. Most of this
has been taken out of the country. Lots of Maori people have
lost jobs and whole towns have been affected. Very few really
new businesses have been created. Foreign investors have no
long-term commitment to this country or its people. The rules
already allow Singapore almost unrestricted rights to buy up
NZ. This agreement is likely to stop the government imposing
more restrictive rules, for example imposing a national
interest test, including a Treaty of Waitangi assessment for
any applications.

Are there any
protections for the Treaty?

The government has included a
clause that says:

nothing in this Agreement
shall preclude the adoption by New Zealand of measures
taken to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty of
Waitangi.

But who decides what
the Treaty obligations are?

For example, the government is
claiming that subsidies for Maori health or giving Maori
preference to buy part of the radio spectrum are not
responses to a Treaty obligation, just part of "closing
the gaps". That means it would fall outside this
protection. If Singapore challenged the government's
interpretation, would Maori have a role in the dispute
process? And who would decide, an international trade forum,
the Waitangi Tribunal or whom?

Has Te Puni Kokiri
been involved in this process?

Te Puni Kokiri was briefed by
trade officials back in early November 1999. It said it
couldn't take a position because it hadn't been given enough
time or information - a familiar complaint about
"consultation" on international trade agreements.
TPK was especially concerned about the possible effect on
Maori workers.

What did TPK suggest?

It didn't want to go over the
same ground that's been covered in "dialogue" with
Maori on the MAI, APEC and WTO. TPK asked for a detailed and
carefully researched report on the implications of the
Agreement for Maori, which could provide the background to an
informed consultation process. This should cover:

The Treaty of Waitangi
exemption clause in the Agreement;

Loosening the rules on
investment;

Eliminating tariffs,
especially the effects on Maori workers and the rules
which set down what can be defined as "made in
Singapore"

Removing restrictions on
services supplied by Singapore;

The framework proposed
for intellectual property rights; and

SOVEREIGNTY.

What happened to the
report?

Apparently the trade officials
agreed to do it. But all they've done so far is commission a
legal opinion about the Treaty exemption clause, which
basically says it's fine and doesn't raise any of the issues
mentioned above. Apparently Maori who are
"consulted" will be given a modified version of the
very general outline given to everyone else.

When and where are the
"consultations" supposed to take place, and who
gets to go?

Regional offices of TPK are
arranging those for some time in June. Around 20 people will
be invited to discuss the issues. Other Maori can come if
they want to, but there won't be any general hui. This
controlled approach was also used for APEC and the WTO, after
the MAI was rejected by Maori at the series of hui throughout
the country.

What has happened with
these consultations in the past?

Maori have consistently voiced
their concerns, even in the hand-picked consultations. Major
concerns have included:

Intellectual property
rights, and control of indigenous knowledge and
bio-diversity;

Exploitation of the
country's resources and people by foreign investors;

Dominance of big
corporations in these deals, with no voice for Maori
small businesses;

The dishonest portrayal
of the position of Maori in the country's economy

None. Parliament doesn't even
control the process. These agreements bind the hands of
future governments. But they are negotiated in secret and are
signed off by the Cabinet. They don't even have to follow the
normal process for legislation. The select committee won't
get to see this agreement or call for submissions until after
negotiations are finished and it's already been signed.
Parliament will get to debate it, but it has no right to stop
it being finally approved. That makes it vital to stop the
process while negotiations are still underway.

How can Maori
intervene?

Get the word around and
raise the issue in different forums and hui and on
iwi radio. Insist on the right to attend the
'consultations' and challenge the process and content
of this agreement. The Maori Affairs select committee
can call in the officials and demands answers.

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